The Prince George Spruce Kings have concerns over the city’s choice for its downtown civic core development.
During last night’s (Monday), meeting mayor and council selected the option two concept plan where a new arena would be built on the existing site of the current Kopar Memorial Arena as well as the Old Fire Hall #1.
Spruce Kings General Manager, Mike Hawes told MyPGNow.com this option would leave them without a home for well over a year and that sharing CN Centre with the Cougars is a non-starter.
“That is a no-go. City administration knows that it can’t be a shared facility between the two junior teams. We need the advertising in the building and so do the Cougars and there are many aspects to our building that we require to generate revenue to stay afloat. That would not be available to us if we had to share the CN Centre.”
Hawes added if they had to temporarily move to Kin 1 it would be a money-losing proposition for the community-owned junior hockey club.
“If we had to go to the next biggest facility in town being Kin 1, there is not enough revenue generation for us in that time frame we would have to play there. Playing in Kopar while they build the new Kopar is the only option that works for our organization.”
The projected arena which could have upwards of 4,500 seats would be a bit big for the BCHL team, but Hawes would welcome playing out of a more modern facility.
“Ideally a 2,500 to 3,000 seat facility would be ideal for us. That being said, if they ended up building one and it contained 4,500 seats we will make it work – we are going to be happy to be in a new facility if we can get it to that point.”
“If we could choose it, we wouldn’t have that many seats in the facility. The old Kopar is just under two thousand and is a great facility to watch hockey in and you are right on top of the action. With a 4,500 seat arena or 5,000 that would be a little much for our team but we would make it work if it came to that,” added Hawes.
This option also puts the new performing arts centre, and either a hotel or housing in the empty space next to the Civic Centre that is currently used for parking.
Multiple Councillors stated residents would eventually have the final say through a referendum.
Something going on in the Prince George area you think people should know about?
Send us a news tip by emailing [email protected].
